Berlin, early '60s
Works & Bricks were told to mark out the aircraft parking areas to cope with new transport aircraft brought into service since the original airlift, at a time when the possibility of a second airlift was felt to be pretty high. The plans from "Europe's Offshore Island" were duly handed to the German foreman of the painting team, who fairly soon came back to report that the hardstandings had been duly painted. Rumours started to spread that the RAF now had such huge transports that there was room for only four or five ...
When he checked, the Head of Gatow's Works & Bricks was surprised to find that this did seem to be so, until he checked the drawings, whose dimensions were in Imperial, which the efficient workers had read in Metric.
Talk about "offshore" ... But it was good for a bit of a larf, and possibly even got the Red people's Intelligence a bit flummoxed.
Painting white lines to Imperial measurements took a lot longer than during the "Metric Moment" ...